


Times Change

by headrush100



Category: Waters of Time - Erica H. Smith
Genre: Battle of Trafalgar, Books, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Time Travel, bookfic, constantine and associates, erica h smith, hedda62, meddling with ancestors, mentions of gore, waters of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headrush100/pseuds/headrush100
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An inexperienced jumper gets more than she bargained for when she lands on a ship of the line during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Luckily, George is there to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Times Change

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on Erica H. Smith (also known as hedda62)’s superb series of time travel/adventure/romance books, **[The Waters of Time](https://ericahsmith.wordpress.com/)** , which has given me many hours of happy adventuring with wonderful characters. If you would like to know more about the world this fic is set in, please check out the author's own description of the world she created **[here](https://ericahsmith.wordpress.com/faq-2)**. Writing this kind of fic was a new experience for me, and I did it as an homage to the stories that have been giving me so much pleasure. I hope you enjoy it too, and do check out her books! The ‘pilgrims’ quote is from _The Golden Journey to Samarkand_ , by James Elroy Flecker.

December 9, 2171

It was a dark and stormy night when Liberty Dorfmann shut the apartment door behind her, set her back against it, and finally gave into shock and the clutch of terror she’d suppressed all the way home. She went to make a cup of tea, but instead sank to the kitchen floor. No tears came. Just a terrifying numbness, and waves of uncontrollable shuddering. 

She would not allow herself the luxury of self-pity. She’d been an idiot, and had caused God knew what kinds of ripples through history. _Her_ history, no less. 

The same blood that stained her hands and clothes, she knew, would forever leave a stain on her conscience. She squeezed her eyes shut, but couldn’t block the image of her victim’s final, confused expression.

Finally, she forced herself to get up. She dragged herself into the bedroom and stepped out of her filthy dress. She pulled on a t-shirt, collapsed onto wonderfully familiar sheets, and embraced the darkness that rushed to meet her.

***

Hands were on her, flinging her from a deep and blessed oblivion and into blind panic. She struck out with every bit of adrenalin-fuelled strength she possessed.

There was a yelp, and a crash-thump that shook the floor hard enough to jolt several small ornaments off the bookcases.

She was on her hands and knees on the bed, gritting her teeth through the searing pain in her back and casting about for something to use as a weapon, when she registered the fact that her assailant hadn’t moved from where she’d put him, and was patiently waiting for her to notice that he was holding up his hands in surrender. She followed his gaze and realized that she was wearing no pants. She clutched at the bedclothes, gathering them around her waist.

He winced slightly when she picked up the bedside lamp. ‘Please don’t throw that.’

‘Get out of here! I’m calling the police!’ Never mind that she had no idea where her phone was right now. He didn’t know that.

‘Miss Dorfmann, it’s George Merrill, from Constantine and Associates.’

She froze, the lamp still upraised, the pain in her back preventing her from coming fully upright. The shakes were disconcerting, but probably added to the menacing effect, so she didn’t bother to fight them. She narrowed her eyes in the gloom. ‘George?’ She’d seen him around, but was too junior for their interactions to go beyond pleasantries in passing. His reputation, however, preceded him. 

‘Andy told me you’d run into some trouble on your jump, but you wouldn’t talk about it with him. Marisol said she could tell from Tim’s scans that you were injured, but when she approached you, you brushed past her. As best anyone can tell, you left the building without so much as a how’d you do. Beatrice is flapping. Mark’s in a foul temper. I stalled Charles from coming over here himself, but he said that if he didn’t hear back from me in an hour, he’d send a team to retrieve you.’

Oh, God. ‘I thought retrieval teams only went after people in the past.’

He shook his head. ‘We’re in a very delicate business. If you go AWOL, they’ll come after you, wherever you are.’ He sighed. ‘Believe me, I know.’

‘But I’m at _home!_ It’s the middle of the night!’

He gave her an assessing look. ‘Did you know that Charles is connected to various intelligence networks?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you behaved erratically after a sensitive jump, and disappeared into the night, possibly in possession of classified information. Charles allowed you a grace period to get in touch, but he’s about to fall back on policies and procedures, which means the retrieval team will haul you back to work. They’ll lock you in a small room, run a battery of unpleasant tests, and talk your ear off until you can’t stand it anymore and start talking back. If you’re not forthcoming, they’ll have a good old college try at drugging your secrets out of you.’

She’d witnessed nothing of the kind in her eight months at the place, but of course she’d heard tales. She broke out in a cold sweat even as she stiffened in indignation. She’d done enough for that place; she’d earned the right to crash out before facing an interrogation. ‘Well, would you speak to him, please? Tell him I’m fine; I’m just resting before I come back to work. Can you get him to call off the dogs?’

He looked at her steadily. ‘I don’t know. Can I?’

She nodded. ‘Please.’

‘Is there anyone at work you’d like to talk to now, or will I do?’

The thought of having to deal with yet another person right now made her recoil. ‘No… You’re here, so you might as well…’

‘If I had a dollar for every time I heard that,’ he said, lightly. Then checked himself. ‘Sorry. Inappropriate.’

From what she had gathered from the female population of Constantine and Associates, those two words pretty much summed up George Merrill.

‘Especially considering you’re in my _bedroom!_ ’ she panted, still trying to calm her breathing and orient herself. ‘What are you really doing here, George? You don’t know me. You have no reason to care about me. So what is it?’

‘May I get up, Miss Dorfmann? I am harmless, I assure you.’

Some corner of her mind noticed his slightly formal speech, marking him as a man out of time. She knew he’d recently returned from eighteenth century Vienna. At least he hadn’t called her _madam_.

‘What time is it, anyway?’ she said.

He unbuttoned his greatcoat, pulled out a silver pocket watch, and squinted at it. ‘Three o’clock, or thereabouts.’

‘What are you doing here at three am?’ she demanded.

‘It’s three in the afternoon,’ he said, gently. He gave her a more penetrating look. ‘On December tenth, twenty one seventy one. In apartment two thirty four, Fairfax Road, Bethesda, Maryland, good old US of A.’ 

‘The afternoon?’ she glanced at the shuttered window, covering her gratitude for his assurance of just _exactly_ when and where she was. 

He nodded. ‘May I?’ he said, gesturing in that direction.

Slowly, she gave a nod, but did not release her grip on the lamp. 

He picked himself up and went over to the window. He opened the blinds and let in the waning, deep blue light of a winter’s day. ‘Why did you think it was the middle of the night?’ he said. 

‘I was… confused.’ In fact it was all a bit of a blur.

The corner of his mouth quirked slightly. ‘It happens. Happens to me with appalling frequency, actually.’ More seriously, he added, ‘So you slept from…’ he paused, inviting her to fill in the blank.

‘I don’t know. About nine.’

‘From nine last night till three this afternoon.’

She nodded, watching his eyes roam down her body, sweep across the tangled bedclothes, and return to meet her gaze. She resisted the urge to cover herself.

‘That’s not unusual after a jump. However, Miss Dorfmann… _Liberty_ , if I may,’ he waited for the slight nod of her head before proceeding, ‘Liberty, are you aware that both you and the bedclothes are covered in blood?’

She looked down. It was quite a mess. She began to shake. ‘Most of it’s not mine.’

He nodded slowly.

‘It belongs to someone who’s been dead for three hundred and sixty six years.’

He nodded again.

Her heart pounded sickeningly. ‘But it would have been less than that, if it weren’t for me.’

‘You killed them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You asked why I’m here,’ he said. ‘I’m here because someone once helped me, early on, when I really needed it. I wondered if you might like to talk things over with a friendly acquaintance before Charles gets you in his lair, but I can see you might need a bit more practical assistance before we get to that.’

***

She could see how he managed to get all those women. Through a combination of charm and gentle humour, he cajoled her into giving him the lamp, which he set back on the nightstand just out of reach, and moments later she found herself face down on the mattress while George-from-work was lifting her shirt to expose her back.

She tensed. ‘I’m not sure this is…’

‘I am,’ he said. ‘I doubt your assailant went to the trouble of sterilizing his sword before each use. And how long has it been since you bathed?’

She flushed. ‘Oh God, I must reek.’

‘No more than anyone would after spending a few days at sea in Nelson’s navy.’

‘Sorry. We weren’t allowed to waste water by washing ourselves or our clothes.’

‘No, of course not.’

What could she do now but change the subject? ‘How did you know it was a sword?’

He laughed softly. ‘Bitter experience. Now,’ he said, opening a bag she hadn’t noticed before. ‘I’m going to clean this up a bit. It’s going to sting.’

In fact, it felt like he’d doused her in gasoline and lit a match. She put her face down on her folded arms and breathed through it.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Want to tell me where you were, three hundred and sixty six years ago? Or shall I guess?’ When she didn’t reply, he added, ‘I’m not your boss. I can’t get you fired. And I’m hardly in a position to judge you.’

She steeled herself. ‘October twenty first, eighteen oh five. I was on the _Temeraire_ , a ninety-eight gun ship of the line at the Battle of Trafalgar.’

‘Wow.’

‘They sent me there to try to discover the identity of the French sniper who fired the shot that killed Horatio Nelson.’

‘Interesting gig,’ he said. ‘Little stick. Don’t move.’ He injected her with something. ‘We’ll give that a minute to numb things, and then stitch you up.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘I may not be on top of my game right now, but I’m pretty sure you don’t have a medical degree.’

‘No, but I’ve had the advanced first aid training for the field that Charles laid on so jumpers could deal with illness or injury themselves, if that was a preferable option to what passed for local medical assistance.’

‘I don’t remember that course being offered.’

‘It was before you arrived. Now listen; this cut needs to be dealt with. Assuming you’d rather not have a lengthy conversation with hospital staff about how you came the injury, I can take you to Medical at work, or you can take your chances with me.’

Going back to work was the very last thing she wanted to do. ‘What would you do to it?’

‘Clean and stitch it. Nothing complicated.’ 

‘And you can really do this.’

‘Yes. You can ask Andy for a review of my prowess, if you like. Ask him about the Ale Bottle Incident.’

Andy was George’s friend; even so, he wasn’t an idiot, and it was unlikely he’d have let George treat him if he didn’t know what he was doing. She shuddered. ‘I’ve never had stitches before.’

‘I have,’ he said, cheerily. ‘Lots. Just be glad you’re getting them with the benefit of anaesthetic. I usually get a few fingers of whisky, maybe a bit of leather to bite on. Anyway. You were on the _Temeraire_. Pardon my saying so, but that was an unusual assignment for a female jumper.’

‘Lots of ships had women on board, officially or otherwise. Wives and lovers of the crew, or passengers. They did some of the domestic work on board. Charles had wanted to send a man, though. But I begged for the assignment.’

He prodded her back, testing her response. ‘How come?’

She swallowed. ‘I was stupid. And incredibly unprofessional.’

‘Oh, I’ve been both those things. Frequently.’

‘Not like this. I did something unbelievably dangerous.’ She saw him pull on some sterile gloves. When he began threading a needle, she quickly looked away. 

‘More dangerous than being on board ship at the Battle of Trafalgar?’ he said, clearly trying to distract her.

‘More personally dangerous. I’ve done a lot of family history. And from the muster rolls I knew that my many-times-great grandfather was on board that ship. And that’s why, when the assignment came up, I let curiosity get the better of me.’

She could hear the unspoken _‘Ah.’_

‘Right.’

‘What I didn’t know was that his wife was on board as well, because, she wasn’t on any official records that I saw. And it’s even worse because I know my grandfather married twice, but I don’t know exactly when his first wife died, or which children he had with which wife. There wasn’t much time between babies from one wife to the next.’ 

‘Understood. Keep still, I’m going to start now.’ 

‘I never intended to have anything to do with them. I just wanted to see what they looked like, and maybe get a sense of what kind of people they were.’

He pushed the needle in and began to sew. There wasn’t any pain, but the dull pressure and firm tugging sensation played unpleasantly on her imagination, and she fought the urge to pull away. After all, it was nothing to what she’d inflicted on that man. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it only made the image in her mind more vivid.

‘So what happened?’ he said. 

A black wall came up somewhere in her mind, and her chest tightened. ‘I want to tell you, I do, but…’

‘You haven’t told yourself, yet?’

She relaxed slightly, heartened by his perspicacity. ‘I want to get it out. But I don’t want to think about it.’

‘He nodded. A most ingenious paradox.’

‘What do you do, George?’

‘I get drunk and pour it out to Andy. Or I find a lady possessed of nimble fingers and a generous spirit who’s willing to help me forget.’

Ugh. ‘I don’t think either of those will work for me.’

He smiled. ‘Perhaps not. Forgive me; I don’t mean to give you a glib answer, but in the end, we each have to work out our own salvation. However, I would strongly advise against trying to suppress traumatic memories. The mind is a tricky thing, and if you don’t deal with something consciously, it’ll likely trouble your dreams for a long time to come, and could lead to depression and all sorts of other fun things.’

‘That’s comforting.’

‘It’s what they told me,’ he said. ‘Sometimes memories return bit by bit, as and when your conscious mind is able to process them.’

She let him carry on working as she steeled herself. ‘Have you ever been in a battle?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Battle-adjacent, but not in the thick of it, thank God.’

Her mind alternated between blessed blankness, and flashes of images and sounds that made her recoil. ‘I don’t know where to begin. And I don’t have the luxury of time. Charles is going to be firing questions at me soon enough.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me what it was like on the ship when the battle started?’

She steeled herself as her mind spewed forth a jumble of images. ‘I can tell you how we rolled and tossed as the ships constantly jockeyed for the best position. How my ears were ringing from the noise of the pistols and cannons. The smell of the smoke and the sea. The screaming and shouting, the pools of blood running from one side of the deck to the other as the ships pitched back and forth. Men were impaled by splintered timbers when cannon balls smashed through the hull, or were crushed by falling masts. I can tell you all of the horrible or exciting things that happened, but I can’t describe what it’s actually like to experience fear at that level.’ 

‘No, it’s difficult to put words to these things,’ said George. ‘I’ve had experiences along those lines. Not during a battle, but times when people have become suspicious of me and held me at gun or swordpoint. Times when I’ve faced people whom I truly believed would have no compunction about killing me if I couldn’t talk them out of it. At those times, you can get what’s called ‘perceptual distortion’. It’s a primal reaction to a life-threatening situation. Your mind will shut down all peripheral awareness; that is, sight, sound, smell, sensation, and so on, in order to focus solely on what it considers to be the primary threat to your life.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know there was a term for it.’ He was still sewing; the cut on her back must be huge. She shivered, pushing the thought away.

‘Can you tell me any more about what happened?’ he said.

She tried to put herself back in that zone. ‘Captain Harvey gave the order to protect Nelson’s ship, the _Victory_ by ramming the French ship _Redoubtable_. The impact was massive. Anyone who wasn’t holding onto something got hurled across the deck, maybe even into the sea. Once we were alongside the _Redoubtable_ , our crew worked fast. They lashed the ships together, and began to board it. Both sides were firing cannons and guns at point blank range. If I hadn’t known how it turned out, I’d have been certain we were all going to sink. Another French ship, the _Fougueux_ came by our other side and they were also disabled and lashed to us.’

‘So the _Temeraire_ was sandwiched between two French ships, fighting both.’

She nodded. ‘For three hours. I was alternating between trying to spot the sniper, and keeping an eye on my grandparents.’

He paused. ‘Did you have a direct encounter with your grandparents?’

Her heart sank. ‘I swore to myself that I wouldn’t. I’m not so much of a fool as to be insensible to the dangers. But when my grandfather turned up in the galley to sneak some time with my grandmother, he spoke to me first, and I did speak to him a bit. I had longer talks with her – if she _was_ my grandmother, and not his other wife – because I helped her and the surgeon’s apprentice prepare bandages the night before the battle. Nothing... consequential.’

‘We can’t know what’s consequential.’

‘I know that, George!’ She pushed herself up on her elbows until she realised that if she went any further he’d be able to see her breasts. She lowered herself back down.

‘Then why did you do it? You took a hell of a risk.’

‘That’s not the risky part.’

‘What else did you do?’ 

‘When the battle started, my grandmother and I took shelter below decks. With the heavy seas and the way they kept changing the ship’s position so suddenly, all we could do was wedge ourselves into a corner of the stern where I was pretty sure the ship hadn’t taken a hit. But when a volley of shots shredded the hull about twenty yards away, my grandmother panicked. She said that if the ship sank, we’d be trapped down there. She grabbed my wrist and towed me up on deck. One of the crewmen saw us; he didn’t have time to argue, so he gave us each a sword and told us to keep out of the way.’

George made a low noise, and she carried on.

‘At one point I saw man nearby be blown in half by a cannonball, and I ran to the side to be sick. While my grandmother hovered next to me, she looked over and saw my grandfather and some other men picking their way over from our ship to the _Redoubtable_ , using a fallen mast as a bridge. Before I could stop her, my grandmother was off after him. She made it across, but tripped over her skirts and fell into the arms of a French sailor, who went to draw a pistol on her.’

‘Oh God,’ murmured George. 

‘My grandfather saw it happen. He shot the Frenchman in the head, and swept my grandmother into his arms. I saw him talking to her, obviously urging her to go and hide,’ she said. ‘She went, and I was going to follow her when I saw one of the French sailors come up behind her and raise his sword.’

‘Shit.’

‘I didn’t think. I _couldn’t_ think. I could only react. I…’ her throat tightened. ‘I ran up behind the man and slashed at him with my sword. My mind was racing, and even as I brought the blade down, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to kill him, so I succeeded only in causing enough pain to make him angry.’

‘Mmm,’ said George.

‘I’d never been in a fight before in my life, let alone contemplated killing someone.’

He nodded. ‘You weren’t prepared for this jump. For being in battle.’

‘He spun around and drew back his sword. There was no question that he was going to kill me if I didn’t kill him first. I jammed my sword into his chest.’ She winced at the memory. ‘It was a lot harder than I expected. Must have hit ribs…’

‘Yes, you would have,’ said George, gently. 

‘He was still trying to fight back, so I stabbed him again, and again, and…’

George nodded. ‘You killed him.’

She nodded, swallowing down the rising bile.

‘What about your grandparents?’

‘My grandfather arrived just afterwards. He grabbed me and my grandmother, and brought us back to where the fallen mast joined the ships. He covered us with his pistol while we hauled ourselves up onto the ship’s rail so that we could step onto the mast. My grandmother went first. I went to follow her, but as I was getting onto the rail, I felt something hit my back, but I didn’t feel any pain until later. I didn’t look to see who or what it was. I just hit out with my sword to beat them back and picked my way back to the ship. I wanted to go below to see my grandmother, but the fighting was too intense. I was forced to go back to Tim, and jumped back.’ 

‘So you never found out who shot Nelson.’

‘No. It happened while I was fighting on the deck. I missed the whole thing. I’m going to be fired.’

‘Do you think you should be?’ said George, after a moment.

‘Of course! I didn’t disclose the fact that I had a personal connection to people on the ship. I let my concern for them distract me from what I was there to do, and I could’ve caused a breach, or got my grandparents killed.’

‘If you’d caused a breach, you probably wouldn’t have been able to get back. You’d have been stuck in the alternate reality that you’d created.’

Soreness in her shoulder prompted a flashback to the jarring sensation of driving her sword into the body of another human being. ‘I killed him. That man.’

‘That’s what happens in battle,’ he said, gently. ‘No, you shouldn’t have been so close to the action that you had to fight; and no, you shouldn’t have interfered with what was happening to your grandparents – ’

‘What if they had been killed? I had already changed what happened when I caused my grandmother to come to the side of the ship where she saw my grandfather going over to the other ship and decided to follow him,’ she said. ‘After that, all I could do was try to limit the damage.’

‘Well then, you should have bloody well stopped her! Bad enough to have one direct ancestor in mortal peril, let alone two.’

‘How? I couldn’t stop her, and all the crew were busy fighting!’

‘So you decided to follow on and try to protect them both,’ he said.

‘It was the least I could do, given that I was the one who set in motion the chain of events that happened to them on the _Redoubtable_. And oh, God, what about the French sailors my grandfather and I killed to save my grandmother? What if their descendants were historically significant, like they invented penicillin or prevented a war, or something, and now they won’t be born?’ Part of her hoped that George would reassure her that this wouldn’t have been able to happen.

‘Quite.’

She shook her head, sinking fast under the enormity of potential repercussions for a decision made in a split second. It wasn’t only her actions that could have changed history, but the subsequent actions by other people, over which she’d had no control. 

‘Do you want to be fired?’ said George.

‘No.’ The answer came without a thought.

‘Well then, in that case, I think you’re the stuff jumpers are made of. Monumental errors in judgment aside.’ A smile crept into his voice. ‘And even that isn’t always a barrier to success.’

‘I can’t believe I messed up so badly. Contrary to appearances, I’m not usually such an idiot.’

‘Well, you’re ahead of me then.’

‘Seriously.’

George shook his head. ‘Seriously, I can’t believe they let you make that jump alone. This is why a junior should always be partnered by a senior. How many solo jumps had you made before this one?’

‘One.’

_‘One?’_

‘Charles conceded to my argument that it would be easier to get me on board as a hanger-on than to send a man who would have to know how to sail a man of war ship.’ She pushed herself up again, until his cool fingertips on her shoulder stopped her. ‘Would it be possible for me to jump again? To go back just slightly earlier and not do the things I did wrong last time? I wouldn’t talk to my grandparents at all, I’d –’

‘No.’

‘But – ’

‘No. You’ve most likely already created an alternate reality where what you did became historical fact in that reality’s time stream, and therefore cannot be undone. In that version of reality, the man you killed died, and so ended his family tree, if he hadn’t already had children. Consequently, any effect on history that his descendants would have had, obviously will not happen now. In that reality.’

‘In that reality. Not this one.’ She tried to wrap her addled mind around this as he nodded.

‘The good news,’ he went on, ‘is that so far as we understand it, which admittedly is _not_ very far, the original historical timeline; that is, history as we know it, seems to exist in an unalterable form. If it didn’t, the dangers of jumping through time would outweigh the benefits, and the potential for abuse and paradoxes abounding would be so great that I doubt time travel would be permitted, period.’

Somewhere deep inside, a glimmer of hope ignited as she struggled to follow the argument. ‘So… there are now two realities; the original version, where I wasn’t present, and events played out the way they did before I jumped. And then the _alternate_ version, where the changes I made might ripple down that timeline, but leave the original version of history unchanged.’ 

‘Correct.’

She blinked slowly. ‘But if the man I killed had already fathered any children whose existence, or whose descendant’s existence, and so on, had an impact on history, then the alternate timeline might not happen. History would show that that sailor died, but there would be no further impact on history as a result of his death because his children carried on as they did in the original version.’

‘Exactly. The version where you _were_ present may have remained the original version, or, if the changes you made were significant enough, they might have caused an alternate reality to branch off at the point where the significant change took place; most probably at the moment of death of the man you killed. But if that death was not significant enough, apart from to the poor bastard himself, then it would not have been necessary for an alternate reality to come into being in order to accommodate any subsequent changes to history.’

‘Okay. I think I get that. But what about the man my grandfather killed, who wouldn’t have been killed otherwise?’

‘I’m less sure about that one, but my guess is, different rules apply there because your grandfather was of that time. He was meant to be there, and therefore he wouldn’t be able to cause an alternate reality to exist; at least no more than any of us do when we choose one course of action over another. Only you could cause a breach in time, because your presence in that year was, if you like, not natural. You were visiting from another time.’

‘Can the Physics Department figure out what happened? Could they tell if I did cause an alternate reality to pop into existence, or whether the men my grandfather and I killed did somehow have an effect on history as we know it?’

‘I don’t know. I suspect even the best of them would struggle to come up with more than an educated guess. There’s no way to test their theory without making another jump, and most likely the only one who could access the alternate reality would be the one who had caused it.’

‘Me.’ She looked back at him. He read the unspoken question in her eyes, and shook his head.

‘Jumps are too risky, and cost far too much money, for Charles to send people on attempted do-overs at the company’s expense, unless it turns out that you did impact the original historical timeline in an important way. Even then, there would be no guarantee that in trying to fix what went wrong before, you wouldn’t simply create alternate reality number two.’

‘But – ’

‘Finally,’ he said, more firmly, ‘you shouldn’t have made that jump in the first place, and there’s no way in hell Charles would send you back for another go. You lied; by omission at least. Setting aside our fervent hope that the original version of history is unalterable, you, not knowing that when you made the jump, still proceeded to meddle with the actions of your own ancestors, which is a frankly suicidal thing to do. You could have wiped out not only your own existence, but the existence of every single person in your family who was descended from any children your grandparents didn’t already have when they boarded the _Temeraire_. We’re probably talking thousands of people.’

Goosebumps chased up her neck and over her scalp. ‘I didn’t mean to – ’

He moved around so that there was no escape from his intense gaze. ‘It doesn’t matter a rat’s turd what you _meant_ to do, or how innocent your intentions were. The fact is, if you’d been honest and not gone on that jump, your grandparents would have done exactly as they should, which obviously turned out just fine for them with no help from you, because the family tree carried on down until you were born. It was your interaction with them that put them in danger and resulted in the deaths of, presumably, different people to those your grandfather may originally have killed in the battle. People lived or died when perhaps they shouldn’t have. It also resulted in you taking a life yourself, and the fallout that comes with that. Although you acted for the best of reasons, to save your grandmother, and therefore, by extension, yourself, that’s something that wouldn’t have had to happen in the first place if you’d minded your own business. Do you understand now how quickly things can get out of hand? Change one thing, and you can change everything.’ 

She put her face down into her arms so that he couldn’t see her break down. He moved back down to his earlier position. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not trying to make this more difficult.’

‘I know. I’m not arguing with anything you’ve said.’

‘If you want to remain a jumper, I’ll put a word in for you with Charles. Believe me, you’re not the first person to succumb to temptation on a job.’ He worked on in silence, cleaning and dressing her wound. 

‘Got any clean sheets around here?’ he said, at last.

She chose not to take that as a criticism. ‘The cupboard in the hall.’

He retrieved a sheet and a light blanket, swapping them for her filthy ones. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, then call Charles.’

She nodded, grateful beyond measure that the universe hadn’t already taken care of that by winking her out of existence. When he headed off to the phone in the living room, she let out a long breath. She could hear him talking, working his persuasive magic on Charles, hopefully. He returned some time later with the promised cup of tea. ‘Thanks. Did you make one for yourself as well?’

‘No, thanks. Not my drink of choice.’

‘Does the fact that I’m still here; that is, I didn’t blink out of existence, mean that I got away with it?’ she said. ‘The original historical timeline is unchanged, and so my family tree wasn’t changed as a result?’

‘Probably. But it’s going to take the Research Department some time to figure that out, because it’s not only your direct ancestors’ existence that was threatened, but all your second, sixth, eighth cousins as well,’ he said. ‘And the same goes for the descendants of the men you and your grandfather killed, if they would have remained in our own timeline, rather than ceasing to exist in an alternate one where they discovered the cure for cancer, or started or ended a world war; we can’t know what ripples in history they might have caused.’

‘But did they ever exist at all, now, to have originally done those things?’ she said. Her head was starting to ache.

‘Yes. Every version of reality is real and valid in its own right.’

Her head was whirling, trying to grapple with it all. At least there was one version of reality where she hadn’t messed everything up. However, the terrible thing remained. ‘I killed a man, George. Whatever reality it happened in doesn’t change that.’

‘I know. I do understand.’

She glanced up at him. There was sadness in his answering smile, and she would lay odds that he hadn’t been sleeping well for some time. She couldn’t live like that. She set her tea on the bedside table, and began swivelling herself around.

George’s strong forearm blocked her from getting off the bed. She was momentarily outraged, then glad, as she remembered the no-pants thing. ‘George –’

‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I have to talk to Charles.’

‘What for?’

‘I have to tell him what I’ve done; find a way to make it right. If I get stuck in a breach, so be it; I owe it to that French sailor to try to make it right; to not kill him. If he was killed at Trafalgar by someone of his own time, fair enough. But it wasn’t fair that he should have been killed by me.’

The tightness in her chest increased as he shook his head, resisting her attempts to shove his arm away.

‘Listen,’ he began, holding up his other hand to forestall her.

‘Look, I appreciate all you’ve done –’

‘No. Shut up and listen. I’ve been… not exactly where you are, but in a situation where I’ve felt so overwhelmed by guilt that I would try anything to make it right, no matter what the cost to me. But I couldn’t. And neither can you. We’ve both made mistakes we can’t fix. And yes, the only way to get through that meeting with Charles with your job intact is to throw yourself on your sword.’ He winced. ‘Sorry. Poor choice of words.’ 

She subsided, though privately, she hadn’t given in. ‘Little bit.’

‘You haven’t said very much about the act of killing,’ he said. ‘Why do you suppose that is?’

She couldn’t formulate a reply to that. ‘It happened so fast.’

‘Yeah, but I think there’s more to it than that. Don’t force yourself to come up with an answer just to get me to drop it,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to know what’s going on under the surface, but you do.’

She nodded. 

‘So trust me when I say that today, at least, you are not thinking clearly enough to go into that debriefing. You’ll say or do something that’ll get you fired or locked up. Rest, heal, get your facts in order as much as you can. I’ll fend Charles off until tomorrow. You’ll have a good breakfast, and we’ll go in together. He won’t send me away because having spent this time with you, he’s going to want me around to feed into the reports and figure out how to spin the story of this botched mission to the client.’

‘Thank you, George. I still don’t understand why you’re doing all this, but I want you to know that I truly appreciate it.’ 

‘Maybe I feel guilty.’ 

She met his gaze. ‘Why should _you_ feel guilty?’

He looked at her for another moment, then stood up. He went to the window and peered out to the rainy street.

‘George?’

He sighed, and returned to the bedside, but remained standing. ‘When Charles told me you were lobbying for that assignment, but he was disinclined to give it to you, I was the one who convinced him to send you.’

'You? Why?'

‘I suppose, from the way he described you, you reminded me a bit of myself when I started. Young, careless… eager for adventures. I told him you couldn’t get experience without having experiences. As it turned out, Charles’s instinct was the right one. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It was an unforgivable error in judgment on my part.’

‘So that’s what you’re doing here? _You’re_ trying to make things right?’

He shook his head. ‘I wish I could. I can only try to help pick up the pieces. I honestly didn’t know how little experience you had. I should have minded my own business and let Charles send someone else, as he wanted to.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘Your influencing Charles’s decision to send me had nothing to do with what I did when I got there.’

‘If I’d kept out of it, you wouldn’t have been there at all and couldn’t have done anything!’ he snapped.

She shook her head. ‘You had no way of knowing. It’s all on me, George.’ She managed a wry grin. ‘Don’t make this about you.’

He stood there in glowering silence.

‘If you’ll pardon me for saying so,’ she began, feeling the ice beneath her hiss and crack, ‘I think you need to be forgiven, but not by me, and not for this.’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Quite a pair, aren’t we.’

She grinned, and began to laugh. Quietly at first, and then loudly, and she found she couldn’t stop. George’s growing look of alarm only made her laugh harder, though she had no idea why. His words didn’t stop it either. Finally, he took a needle from his bag and jabbed her with it, and she submitted to a friendly darkness once again.

***

When she opened her eyes, the room was dark, and she could still hear the rain. She lay wrapped in pleasurably fuzzy semi-consciousness before there was a rustling from the corner. She gave a start. Pain sliced through her back, and for a few moments she fought against a tidal wave of imagery and emotion. It was because of this that her tone was somewhat less than friendly when she steadied herself enough to whisper, ‘You’re still here.’

The dark figure in the corner got to his feet and spoke softly. ‘Yes. I believe it’s good manners to stay with someone after I drug them. Sorry about that, by the way,’ he added, before she had a chance to choose between being angry or relieved. ‘How do you feel?’

Where to begin. ‘Horrible. But it’s okay, George. Really. You can go to work.’ She heard footsteps out in the living room, and people talking in low voices. ‘What’s that? Who’s out there?’ She needed to get dressed. Where were her clothes? 

He moved closer to the bed, and lowered his voice. ‘Liberty, calm down and listen to me.’

Being told to calm down raised her blood pressure about twenty points. ‘How do you suggest I do that? Who’s in my house?’ She was almost shouting now, and the people outside had fallen quiet, listening.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, holding them up in a mollifying gesture. ‘A retrieval team is here.’

Her eyes flew to the doorway. ‘What?’ Visions of being frogmarched off to a dungeon swam before her eyes, and she swore.

‘I’m afraid I couldn’t stop Charles from sending them over. Knowing what I know about what happened, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just procedure. They’re here to ensure that you don’t try to leave the apartment, or contact anyone outside the firm. When you’re ready, they’ll escort you to the office.’

‘Why is that not reassuring?’

‘If they were going to haul you off, they’d have done it about six hours ago.’

‘They’ve been here for _six hours?_ What time is it now?’

He took out his pocket watch. ‘Five minutes to four. Am. On December eleventh, twenty one seventy one. In apartment two thirty four, Fairfax Road.’ 

‘I know, I know,’ she said, irritable now that he still wasn’t convinced that she knew where she was. She cast about the room. ‘I have to get dressed. I might as well go now.’

‘No, you need to rest.’

‘I’m not going back to sleep with them here!’ That was loud.

Heavy, booted footfalls came down the hallway, until a large officer wearing body armor appeared at the entrance to her bedroom. She pulled the covers up over her shoulders like a five year old trying to become invisible. 

The officer’s gaze slid from her to George. ‘Everything all right in here, sir?’

‘Yes, it’s fine, thank you.’

The officer glanced back to her, then gave a nod and disappeared into the hall.

Every muscle in her body was rigid. This wasn’t how she’d imagined working for Constantine and Associates to be.

‘Calm down,’ said George.

‘Or what; you’ll knock me out again?’

He put the watch away. ‘No, but I’ve already told you; go into Charles half-cocked and you’ll do yourself a lot more harm than good. You don’t have to go to sleep, but you need to stay here a while longer.’

She looked at him. ‘George, forgive me saying this, but are you done processing whatever it was that happened to you? Are you entirely clear on what happened, and able to talk about it rationally?’

A beat, and he dropped his gaze.

She nodded. ‘Would you mind? I need to get dressed.’ 

Another beat, and he went out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

***

Nine hours later, George’s hand steered her in the direction of a booth in a quiet corner of the coffee shop. ‘Sit down over there. I’ll get us some coffee.’ 

She dropped into the padded seat gratefully. Grateful for all he’d done for her over the past day and a half. For staying at her side in the back of the retrieval team’s van and making a joke to take the edge off the rising panic as they cuffed her to the seat. For waiting while the medical team approved his work on her back. For placing himself beside her for hours in the debriefing room whilst Charles, Mark, Beatrice, and Janet fired questions at her and scribbled things in forms. For reminding them that they had sent her into a dangerous situation without adequate preparation. For pressing his foot down on hers when she began to plead for a return jump, and suggesting that they had enough to be going on with for now, so if they weren’t going to fire or detain her, it would be best if she went home and got some more rest before talking to the panel again, and then someone on the counselling team. For leading her out by way of the research department, so that she could give them access to her online family tree so that they could cross-check it, along with such reports as existed of the French sailors killed on the _Redoubtable_ , to try to trace their descendants, or lack thereof. When all of these teams had done their jobs and were as clear as possible on what had happened and what the consequences were, she could begin a phased return to work once her stitches were removed. 

But for now, all she had to do was drink coffee. George set the thick turquoise mug in front of her and slid into the seat opposite. He leaned his head back and let out a groan. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered.’

She laughed a little. ‘You must be. My actions weren’t easy to defend.’

‘You’re not the first person to have made a mistake. Jumping is a tricky thing to do at the best of times, and training can only prepare you for a fraction of what you might encounter. Besides, you certainly weren’t the only person in that room to have made a complete cock-up of a jump.’ He threw her a tired grin. 

‘Two years’ probation; I reckon I got off lightly,’ she said, her finger tracing the handle of her mug.

‘And you don’t think you should have.’

‘No.’ As far as she was concerned, she’d be on probation the rest of her life, because nothing like this could ever happen again.

He sighed. ‘What kind of punishment do you suppose would dissolve that feeling of guilt?’

‘I don’t know.’

He nodded, wrapping his hands around his own mug. ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? There isn’t one. But shall I tell you something?’ He forged ahead without waiting for an invitation. ‘I think your punishment is appropriate. You let curiosity get the better of you, so you lied to Charles and went on to make some unprofessional, yet very human decisions about making contact with your ancestors. Those were the mistakes you made. You did _not_ influence your grandfather’s decision to board the French ship, nor your grandmother’s decision to follow him. And let’s not forget this all happened in the midst of a ferocious battle; a situation that, unlike all those sailors, you weren’t trained to cope with. Those men expected to kill or be killed. That French sailor would undoubtedly have killed your grandmother if you hadn’t intervened. And if you hadn’t gone on to kill him, then he would have killed you. Yes, you were in a panic, but that probably saved your life. You can’t stand there and have a moral debate with yourself while someone’s trying to hack at you with a sword, Liberty. You did no more than you had to, to save your grandmother and yourself.’ 

‘I know.’ She shook her head. ‘But still.’

‘Even if you’d had combat training, there’s no way to prepare you for taking a life. Very few sane people could do what you did and be able to breeze through the psychological aftermath,’ he said. ‘It’ll have affected you on levels you haven’t even realized yet, and makes you question a lot of things about yourself. But you have to remember that ultimately you only did what you had to do to save yourself and your grandmother.’

She nodded, filing his words away for when she might be ready to process them.

‘I can talk sense to you till my voice gives out, but I know there will always remain a part of you that can’t be reached by reason. It’s that part, if you like, that comprises your ‘punishment’. It’ll make you feel wretched at times, but it will get easier, and all that pain and guilt will transform into something that may, if you squint, resemble wisdom.’

She gave him a disbelieving look.

‘So they tell me,’ he said, and fell silent, sipping his coffee.

‘You are a mystery wrapped in an enigma,’ she said, hoping to spur him to elaborate. He didn’t.

‘So, what were they like?’ he said. ‘Your grandparents.’

An image sprang to mind of her grandmother, up to her elbows in strips of linen she was tearing up for bandages. Her head was thrown back as she laughed at the telling of how her beloved had ridden to her father’s house on a donkey to ask for her hand. ‘She had a great sense of humor.’ She met George’s gaze. ‘It feels so strange to be talking about someone in the past tense when I was with them in their prime of life only a few days ago.’ 

He nodded. ‘It does make one’s head spin a bit. It’s almost as though they’re not really dead, but, as the old saying goes, merely beyond our view, in a foreign country.’

‘That’s it,’ she said eagerly. ‘It feels as though somewhere, somehow, they’re still alive, and if I could just follow the thread that connects that time with this…’

He smiled a little sadly. ‘I know.’

‘It could even work like that,’ she said.

‘Perhaps,’ he allowed. ‘We don’t know. Unfortunately, there’s an awful lot we don’t understand about the nature of time, and mistakes can be costly.’ Off her look, he quickly added, ‘I don’t mean like that. I mean, we still don’t understand much about parallel universes, alternate realities, the architecture of time. And yet we continue to leap into the unknown.’

‘As humans always have done,’ she said. _‘We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go Always a little further: it may be Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, Across that angry or that glimmering sea.’_

‘Indeed.’ He smiled. ‘Because there always have been, and always will be, people like you and me who have a curious nature and an adventurous spirit.’

‘And no brains whatsoever.’

He laughed. ‘Alas, not always.’ He drained his mug, and grew serious. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ he said.

She nodded, wishing she could believe it.

‘No, really. It’ll take some time. Probably a lot of time. But bit by bit, you’ll recover from this, and you’ll be a better jumper because of it.’

‘And a wiser person?’

He gave her half a grin. ‘So they told me, and I’m telling you.’

‘You’re still holding out hope that it could happen?’

‘Of course. What’s life without hope?’

A violent sob caught her unawares, loudly enough for people several tables away to look round and cast disapproving stares at George. 

He shot a charming smile at the waitress, who appeared at his elbow with more coffee and a cool glance for Liberty. George caught it, and grinned. 

Attempting to move past her emotional outburst, she managed an amused eyeroll.

‘I can’t help it,’ he said. 

‘Mmm.’ Peace, or perhaps merely exhaustion, was beginning to take its toll. When she’d drained her second mug, her eyes were closing. 

George pulled the mug from her unresisting fingers, and set it aside. ‘All right. I’m cutting you off. Time to go home and sleep.’

She stiffened. Sleep meant dreams, and probably nightmares.

He slid out of his seat to stand at her side, hand outstretched. ‘Come on. The adrenalin’s worn off, and you’re crashing.’

‘I don’t want to sleep.’

‘Well, you can just lie down on the bed or the sofa, and rest, then.’

Both of them knew full well that the moment she laid her head down, she’d be out of the count until a nightmare intervened. She was quietly panic-stricken at the thought of being alone in her apartment, at the mercy of her whirling subconscious, but George had already done so much; she couldn’t ask him to stay.

She got to her feet, surprised at how drunk she felt, how sounds were dull, all blurred together, and the room was whirling. George wrapped a strong arm around her, navigating them through the maze of cafe tables to the blustery air outside. 

‘Jumping can play merry hell with your circadian rhythms,’ he was saying. ‘For some reason it seems to be worse on the return jump than the outward one. It should right itself soon. Plus,’ he added, ‘the remains of the sedative will still be working through your system.’ 

‘Well then, I suppose I should stay awake; it’s still only mid-afternoon. If I sleep now, my body clock will never get straight.’

‘You don’t need to be up for any particular reason today, and your body and mind need rest to heal.’

The journey home passed in a blur. By the time they reached her bedroom, he was bearing most of her weight. Once again, her own bed felt wonderful, mess though it was. He helped her off with her jacket and shoes, and put the blanket over her.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m okay now.’

He smiled. ‘You will be.’ He went over to the corner, sat in the armchair, and put his feet up. ‘Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.’

She nodded, and closed her eyes.

End.


End file.
